Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Under Senator Crown's Bill every citizen entitled to vote in local elections will be entitled to a Seanad vote. This undoubtedly would break the hold to some extent that the political establishment has on the Seanad's membership. Also worth noting is a clause that ensures that Seanad elections will occur on the same day as the Dáil polling day. I welcome this. By extension, it will also stop people running for both Houses of the Oireachtas. This would lessen the unsavoury and widespread practice by political parties of treating the Upper House as either a Montessori or kindergarten for future Dáil candidates or as a nice retirement home for failed Dáil candidates or party loyalists.

The proposal in the Bill to extend the electoral franchise to Irish citizens living abroad for Seanad elections is one I strongly support and welcome. I am sure that would be welcomed by anybody who has a friend, a niece or a child who has had the bad luck to have to emigrate in the past five years. I remind Members that during the height of the recession 110 people per day were leaving our shores seeking employment abroad. I do not have the exact numbers. We have a diaspora of 70 million, but if we think of the past seven years and the many people who did not want to leave Ireland and had to leave, surely, for starters, they deserve a vote. I would also remind Members that it is not easy for a person who is abroad to vote. One has to leave the job one hopefully has in Boston, Chicago or Abu Dhabi and find the consulate or embassy and register to vote.

Then on polling day, one must reregister and place one's vote. It is not just a question of going online and clicking "pick". It is not an easy thing to do but I welcome the fact that it is stretched across the world to our diaspora. It is funny that we dream up things like The Gathering and we expect those abroad to support it. Why not therefore give these people a vote?

The new system envisaged in the Bill to nominate candidates is to be welcomed and should ensure that it is easier for people to contest a Seanad election if they wish. Thankfully, it would bring an end to the undemocratic situation whereby fewer than 2,000 people decide the outcome of the panel elections, which amount to 43 seats in this Chamber. The ending of the practice of nominating bodies for these panels is no bad thing to my mind.

I have heard Senator Crown explain in media interviews earlier this week that to remove the Taoiseach's nominees or the university Senators from the make-up of the Seanad would require a constitutional referendum. I can accept this point despite my reservations about both panels, as I know there is little public appetite for referendums due largely to the huge cost associated with running them.

Given that the electoral system is freer and less under the control of the political parties, it might not necessarily be a bad thing and may help to avoid legislative stalemates. I suggest it might make this reform pill easier to swallow for the political parties. Where I differ strongly from Senator Crown is in his proposals for the structure of university seats. This Bill, if passed, would see the creation of three university panels - a Trinity panel, a National University of Ireland panel and a panel for other higher institutions - each consisting of two seats. I would like to encourage Senator Crown, when he speaks later, to explain his rationale at to why Trinity is afforded two seats. Trinity is one institution so I need to hear why it deserves two seats while the other universities and institutes of technology are lumped into two panels.